Royal College of Music welcomes Sir Antonio Pappano, Lang Lang and Mark-Anthony Turnage for spring season 2020
Tuesday 3 December 2019
The Royal College of Music today announced its first season of events for 2020.
The RCM is welcoming a host of celebrated musicians including Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera. On 8 March, Sir Antonio will conduct the RCM Symphony Orchestra in Saint-Saëns’ Symphony no 3 and Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps. Another esteemed visitor, world-famous pianist Lang Lang, gives a masterclass on 8 April. The RCM Symphony Orchestra performs Mahler’s Totenfeier and Shostakovich’s Symphony no 8 under the baton of Vasily Petrenko, Chief Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, on 18 March.
Mark-Anthony Turnage, in his 60th birthday year, is the RCM’s Composer in Residence for the season. A week of concerts, talks and classes events reflects his extraordinary creative range, including a masterclass on 29 January and orchestral concert on 30 January, hosted by the composer himself. The orchestral concert is part of the RCM’s ongoing More Music Concert Series, a specially curated series of events in aid of the More Music Campaign which have been designed to offer audiences a little bit more.
International Women’s Day on 8 March is marked with four special events, including an opportunity to ‘meet the professionals’ and hear top female arts directors, composers and broadcasters discussing the role of women in the music industry today and beyond. An event championing ‘women of the RCM’ will feature music by alumni including Charlotte Bray, one of the Evening Standard’s Most Influential Londoners and winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Composition Prize.
The RCM hosts three festivals this season. The ever popular Chamber Music Festival runs 12 – 16 February and features repertoire for small ensembles that stretches across all genres, including an Illuminate concert promoting the work of emerging women composers and performers on 15 February. A two day Recorder Festival on 1 and 2 March features music from the old and new worlds with concerts by international soloists including Pierre Hamon from France and Inês d’Avena from Brazil. On 22 March the RCM’s Keyboard Festival celebrates Beethoven in his 250th year, which complements a series of Beethoven chamber works, new for this season.
The spring season features intimate masterclasses from around 30 of the world’s best musicians, including pianist Stephen Hough, RCM Polonsky Visiting Professor of Violin Maxim Vengerov, harpist Marisa Robles and violist Isabel Villanueva. Masterclasses offer a rare opportunity to find out more about the process behind the performance from artists who perform regularly at the world’s most high profile venues.
The RCM Opera Studio presents a triple-bill of one-act masterpieces on 16, 17, 19 and 21 March. Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue, Britten’s Les Illuminations and Ravel’s L’heure espagnole celebrate the French language through elegant libretti and are directed by experienced international opera director Olivia Fuchs.
Booking for the spring season is open now for RCM Friends and Patrons. General booking opens on Wednesday 11 December 2019.
For full details of what’s on this spring visit www.rcm.ac.uk/events, call the RCM Box Office on 020 7591 4314, or visit the RCM in person on Prince Consort Road, SW7 2BS.
